


through an orchard green

by schweet_heart



Series: Merlin Fic [171]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Boys Kissing, Brutally Obvious Metaphors, Childhood Sweethearts, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humour, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jealous Merlin (Merlin), Language of Flowers, Light Angst, M/M, Making Out, Oblivious Merlin (Merlin), Secret Relationship, Smitten Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17809262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: The first time Merlin introduces Arthur to his mother, it doesn't exactly go as planned. For one thing, he's really supposed to be minding the shop, not making out with his boyfriend. For another, he was kind of hoping Arthur would be fully dressed at the time.





	through an orchard green

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moonflower999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonflower999/gifts).
  * Inspired by [all ye faithful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16749565) by [schweet_heart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart). 



> This is a timestamp/prequel to my fic _all ye faithful_ and works best when read in conjunction with that story, but it can also be read as a stand-alone. The title comes from an obscure carol called The Cherry Tree Carol.
> 
> NB: Characters' age is unspecified, but intended to be above the age of consent in their country of origin.
> 
> Many thanks to Ato and Moonflower for their contributions to and support of the creation of this fic! Moonflower, a very belated Happy Birthday to you; my apologies for taking so long with this story – I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

 

 

Merlin’s favourite place to kiss Arthur was everywhere, but his favourite _location_ for said kissing was in the back of his mother’s flower shop. Behind the counter, where Hunith kept all the miscellaneous detritus necessary for tending growing things—scissors, shears, spades, bags of potting mix—there was a greenhouse, warm and damp and smelling of wet earth, and it had rapidly become one of Merlin’s favourite games to drag Arthur inside and kiss him there, pressed up against one of the shelves amidst the blossoms of his mother’s more exotic plants.

 

It wasn’t until much later that Merlin realised why he liked it; beyond the purely practical benefits, such as the ability to take his kit off in winter without getting cold, he had begun subconsciously to associate his time with Arthur with things that grew exclusively in a hot-house climate. He would never have called _Arthur_ fragile—that wasn’t the way he was built—but there were times when their relationship appeared destined to resemble one of his mother’s African violets, in that it only seemed capable of flourishing when the conditions were exactly right.

 

“Are you sure no one can see us?” Arthur asked again, breaking away from Merlin to shoot an uneasy glance at the window that spanned the length of the opposite wall. He was still wearing his white school shirt, but only just, and Merlin could see the gleam of moisture where it had collected in the hollow at his throat—yet another reason to be grateful for the greenhouse—and the slick sheen that highlighted the muscles of his chest. He pressed his mouth to Arthur’s collarbone, lapping at the salty skin, and made a noncommittal sound against the protruding Adam’s apple.

 

“Glass’s too foggy,” he said briefly, nosing a path up the length of Arthur’s neck. “Besides, it’s frosted—no one can see through it.”

 

“Yeah, but have you ever tried?” Arthur said, holding him off with one hand and leaning back against the bench. Merlin pouted at the deprivation, and Arthur laughed, flicking his nose, but he still refused to go back to what they’d been doing. “I mean, it’s just glass. And that side can easily be seen from the street.”

 

Merlin sighed. “Do you seriously want to go into this _now_?” he whined. Arthur frowned at him, and Merlin threw up his hands. “No, I haven’t tried to sneak a peek at someone making out in the greenhouse before, but that’s largely because I’ve never had the opportunity. Nobody is going to see us, Arthur. It’ll be fine.”

 

He ran a hand along the waistband of Arthur’s trousers and was rewarded with a slight twitch—a twitch that quickly became a shudder as he crooked his finger into the gap by Arthur’s hip and tugged him forward. Arthur obeyed the summons grudgingly, pressing up against Merlin’s body as he sought Merlin’s lips with his own, and Merlin made an approving noise in the back of his throat. He had to share Arthur with too many people as it was, and he didn’t intend to spend half their time looking over his shoulder while he waited for the bogeyman—otherwise known as Uther Pendragon—to strike while his back was turned.

 

“You worry too much,” he murmured, scraping his fingers up the skin of Arthur’s nape and into his hair. Arthur liked it when he did that, just as he’d liked it when Merlin blew him at the train station before he went off to Eton, and the time when they’d nearly been discovered making out in his father’s study. He wasn’t nearly as much of a prude as he sometimes pretended, even if he did make Merlin promise not to tell anyone about the two of them. “I bet he wouldn’t even care if he found out, you know. Not really.”

 

He could tell from Arthur’s little huff of air that he disagreed, but for once he seemed disinclined to pursue the subject—he was more interested in pursuing Merlin’s arse instead, sliding his hands into Merlin’s back pockets in a gesture that was too casually possessive not to have been thought out in advance. Merlin grinned against his mouth, and Arthur pinched him through the denim in retaliation, which Merlin considered highly unfair given that he hadn’t actually _said_ anything. He bit down on Arthur’s bottom lip, registering dimly that somewhere out in the shop the bell over the door was ringing—but it was far away, and he was busy, and whoever it was was just going to have to wait to purchase their lobelias or alyssum or whatever it was they needed.

 

That, naturally, was when he heard his mother’s voice, her footsteps ringing on the concrete as she approached the greenhouse door.

 

“—your uncle away, so I thought I’d come back early to get started on the…”

 

Hunith Emrys stopped short, staring. In an instant, Arthur had shoved Merlin away from him with both hands, causing him to stumble backwards in shock. Merlin put a hand up to his mouth, a belated and woefully inadequate attempt to cover up the evidence, and for a moment the three of them stood looking at one another with near identical expressions of horror on their faces.

 

“Well,” Hunith said. Merlin looked at his boyfriend, saw the tension in his shoulders and the burgeoning panic in his eyes, and made a split-second decision.

 

“Mum,” he said, reaching out to tangle Arthur’s fingers with his. “This is Arthur.”

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

Hunith knew about Arthur, of course, if only indirectly. Merlin hadn’t exactly been subtle about the fact that he was seeing someone, and since he told his mother everything—okay, _nearly_ everything—about his life, he had deemed it futile to try and keep it a secret from her entirely. Arthur had agreed, but requested that Merlin stick to first names only, with no identifying details, even though there were only so many other Arthurs in such a small town and, as Merlin had pointed out, Hunith was not a stupid woman. Lately, he had been toying with the idea of introducing them to one another in some way, a kind of controlled blending of the two most important parts of his life, but—well. They were stuck in African violet territory, and he hadn’t wanted to push his luck if Arthur wasn't keen.

 

Apparently, fate had other plans.

 

If Hunith was upset to have come back to find her son kissing another boy in the middle of their greenhouse, she didn’t show it. She greeted Arthur politely, ignoring his blushes as he fumbled to re-button his shirt, then turned to Merlin with a stern expression that was belied by the twinkle in her eyes.

 

“Did you get those parcels sent off the way I asked you to?” she asked, heaving a bulging grocery bag onto the nearest counter. She was strong, his mum, stockily built and used to hard labour, only part of which was due to having raised him as a single parent. “And send in those order forms? The deadline is tomorrow, Merlin, you know we need that shipment to be on time—”

 

“I know, Mum,” Merlin interrupted, holding up his hands. “I did everything you asked me to, I promise.”

 

“And a few things I didn’t,” Hunith said, voice dry, and in spite of himself Merlin had to fight down a blush.

 

“Arthur’s here on short leave,” he said, knowing that some form of explanation was necessary. “He came down to visit his father, but Mr Pendragon wasn’t home, so I invited him to spend the day with me instead.”

 

 _Invited_ was too loose a term: what he meant was _bribed, tricked, pestered,_ and possibly _cajoled_. Arthur was difficult to pin down at the best of times, but lately he had become increasingly unpredictable, and Merlin wasn’t above seizing the opportunity to corner him when one presented itself.

 

“I see.” Hunith looked at Arthur, who had regained his hold on Merlin’s hand and was now gripping it so tightly that Merlin was afraid he would cut off the circulation. Whatever she saw must have made her re-think her next words, because her expression softened. “Well, Arthur, you’re in luck. Merlin and I were planning on doing a bit of repotting this afternoon. Would you like to join us?”

 

Merlin groaned—he’d forgotten that he had agreed to help with the planting today. “You don’t have to,” he said, when Arthur looked over at him uncertainly. “All we’ll be doing is taking the flowers out of one pot and putting them in another. It’s kind of boring, really.”

 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Arthur said, glancing back at Hunith, and all the posh-boy manners in the world couldn’t cover up the fact that he was gradually edging towards the door. “I don’t really know much about gardening—I’ll only get in your way.”

 

“Nonsense. Merlin will teach you,” Hunith said, with enough firmness in her voice that Arthur stopped protesting and stood still. “Won’t you, Merlin?”

 

“Of course, Mum,” Merlin agreed helplessly. This wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned when he pictured her and Arthur finally getting to know one another, but once his mother got an idea into her head, it was often better just to go along with it. “I’d be happy to.”

 

"That's settled, then." Hunith smiled, apparently oblivious to the fact that Arthur was staring at her with dismay, and Merlin sighed.

 

It was going to be an interesting afternoon.

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

“I really am sorry about this,” Merlin told Arthur some time later, snatching a moment in between lugging around bags of fertiliser to pause at his boyfriend’s side. Arthur was up to his elbows in dirt, his face flushed, strands of damp blond hair curled wetly against his forehead, and Merlin very much wanted to kiss him. “My mum, I mean. I didn’t know she was going to ambush us, I swear.”

 

“It’s okay.” Arthur flashed him a crooked smile, the one Merlin liked best, and rubbed a forearm over his sweaty forehead. “She’s quite nice, actually.”

 

“Even though she kidnapped you and is using us both for manual labour?”

 

That made Arthur laugh. “It’s not so bad. Kind of relaxing, in a disgusting sort of way.”

 

Merlin grinned. “If the blokes on your rugby team could hear you now,” he teased, and Arthur scrunched up his nose. 

 

He was right, though—it _was_ relaxing, or it would have been if Merlin hadn’t spent half the afternoon hovering in the background, trying to decide whether or not he ought to intervene between Arthur and his mother.

 

“So what school do you go to, Arthur?” Mrs Emrys asked, guiding one of her prized chrysanthemums into the container that Arthur had prepared. Merlin had decided to put him on pot-filling duty, after a couple of unfortunate incidents involving torn roots and broken stalks had demonstrated that Arthur was not best suited to the more delicate aspects of their task. “You’re not at Ealdor High, I take it.”

 

“No.” Arthur shook his head, but didn’t seem inclined to say anything else. Mrs Emrys said,

 

“At boarding school, then?”

 

Arthur nodded. “Eton.”

 

Hunith made the usual impressed noises at this discovery—everyone was always impressed with Arthur—and asked him a few more leading questions about his classes and teachers, each one eliciting the same politely subdued response. Merlin had never known Arthur to be so quiet, and the way he held himself in her presence—head tucked in, shoulders back, as though undecided whether he ought to holding himself upright or try to disappear—made something in Merlin’s chest ache, unbidden. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost have said Arthur was _afraid_ of Hunith, for all that she was practically half his height.

 

“And how did the two of you meet?” Hunith asked finally, glancing over at Merlin. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to elicit some help from him in managing the conversation, or if she was really just curious. Probably a little bit of both. “I can’t imagine you have many friends in common.”

 

“We don’t,” Merlin agreed. He set another empty pot on the table beside them and paused for a moment, catching his breath. “Arthur was slumming.”

 

“I was not.” Arthur turned scarlet, glaring at Merlin none too subtly over his shoulder. “We met at my sister’s birthday party last year. She invited pretty much the entire village, but some of her mates were…uh…” 

 

“Tormenting one of the gay kids from school,” Merlin filled in matter-of-factly, and Hunith’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t worry, I put a stop to it."

 

“ _We_ put a stop to it,” Arthur corrected. “You just yelled a lot. I was the one who pushed Valiant into the lake.”

 

“Right.” Merlin rolled his eyes. “Because that went over well.”

 

“It got him to stop being a dick, didn’t it?” Arthur shrugged. “Anyway, for some reason Merlin decided that I was one of the bullies and started yelling at _me_ instead, which was—”

 

“—completely deserved, since you were acting like a total prat,” Merlin filled in. He saw his mother hiding a smile. “Well, it’s true!”

 

“It sounds like an interesting party,” Hunith said diplomatically. She smiled at Arthur, who smiled tentatively back, then turned back to his work with his cheeks slightly pink, ducking his head. “And so the two of you became friends after that?”

 

“I kind of sought him out,” Arthur admitted, surprising Merlin. He wasn’t looking at either of them, digging his fingers into the dirt without really achieving anything, but at least he was talking. “I wanted to make sure he knew that I was nothing like Valiant.”

 

“And after that, I couldn’t seem to get rid of him,” Merlin said. He put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, sliding his fingers into the curl of hair at his nape and tugging on it playfully. “He’s kind of grown on me, though. Like a fungus.”

 

“ _You’re_ a fungus,” Arthur retorted—no doubt out of pure instinct—then shut his mouth, looking abashed. Hunith laughed.

 

“Two sides of the same coin,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Arthur.”

 

“Likewise,” Arthur said, his eyes meeting Merlin’s, and he smiled.

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

This late in the season, the evenings crept in early, the sky turning a soft blue-grey overhead as the brilliant orange of the sunset drained below the horizon. Merlin dragged the last pot over to be filled, dropping it in front of Arthur where he sat alone on the bench, and straightened up, dusting off his hands on the seat of his trousers.

 

“Where’s Mum?” he asked, glancing around the greenhouse. “I thought she was going to give us a ride.”

 

“Went to close up shop,” Arthur said, with a gesture towards the open door. “She said we should finish up here and then follow her back to your place in my car.”

 

“Really?” Merlin raised his eyebrows. “She said that?”

 

“I kind of thought she was going to make me swear a blood oath or something,” Arthur said, grinning. “ _I do solemnly swear to obey the road rules and make sure to have Merlin home by seven._ But she agreed to it in the end.”

 

Merlin smiled and leaned over to kiss him, elbows resting on Arthur’s shoulders, his tongue tracing the soft dip of Arthur’s mouth before pulling away.

 

“Maybe she felt guilty about interrupting us earlier.”

 

“Hmm, maybe,” Arthur said. “Or maybe she knew I wanted her to leave so that I could give you these.”

 

With an awkward flourish, he produced a handful of battered chrysanthemums from behind his back and held them out to Merlin. Judging by their downtrodden appearance, they had been among those clipped from the bushes during pruning and discarded as unworthy of sale, but someone—Arthur, obviously—had collected them anyway, organising them into a rough bouquet and tying them together with a length of string.

 

“What are these for?” Merlin asked, accepting the offering gingerly. “It’s not my birthday.”

 

“I know that, idiot. Your mum was telling me what they mean.” Arthur tipped his head to one side, indicating the freshly filled pots. “The red ones are for passion, the white ones for honesty and loyalty.” He smiled that crooked smile again and lifted one shoulder. “She was going to throw them out, but I told her they made me think of you.”

 

Flustered, Merlin looked down. Most of the flowers he was holding were red, with a couple of other colours mixed in—white, orange, and purple. He pointed at one of the violet ones. “And what about these?” he asked. “What do they mean?”

 

“The purple ones mean _get well soon_. From your mental affliction,” Arthur clarified, smirking when Merlin frowned at him. “Although I’m afraid you may be a hopeless case.”

 

Merlin threw the flowers at his head. “You’re such an asshole.”

 

“And yet, you love me anyway,” Arthur said, picking them up again, and the worst part was that it was probably true.

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

Arthur stayed to dinner with them that evening, the first time Merlin could remember seeing him eat something that wasn’t a hurried snack or half-eaten bag of crisps. He made quite the performance of it, using his knife and fork _just so_ , elbows off the table, back straight, perfect as a mannequin. It was like some kind of exotic dance, one that Merlin found equal parts fascinating and disturbing. So this was what Arthur looked like when he was on his best behaviour. Merlin wondered if Uther Pendragon was the same way at home, so polite and attentive, or if it was just the way Arthur had been taught to behave in company. Somehow, given what he knew of Arthur’s home life, he was willing to bet it was the latter.

 

Arthur had relaxed a bit in other ways, however; he was happy enough to make conversation, now that the ice was broken, his foot bumping companionably against Merlin’s ankle under the table, and afterwards he insisted on helping to do the dishes. Hunith smiled and let him, and Merlin grudgingly agreed to dry, elbowing Arthur in the stomach as they left the kitchen and accusing him of trying to make him look bad.

 

“Don’t be stupid,” Arthur said with a smirk. “You do that all on your own.” When Merlin scowled at him, he added, “At least it gives me an excuse to stay a while longer. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to see you tomorrow, once my dad gets home.”

 

“Oh.” Merlin digested this, two different and conflicting emotions warring in his chest. “Right, of course.”

 

He put the plug in the sink and turned the water on, letting it run absently for a moment while he fumbled for the dishwashing liquid. Arthur came up to stand beside him, hesitant, resting a tentative hand on Merlin’s back. “I’m sorry, Merls. You know what he’s like.”

 

“’s okay,” Merlin said automatically. He understood, really, or he tried to; it was just that he had been so happy this evening that he had forgotten the way Arthur’s father always managed to ruin everything. He caught hold of the other boy’s wrists and tugged him closer, plunging his hands into the bubbles that were now filling the sink. “Here,” he said. “This bit’s your job.” When Arthur made a face at him, he laughed and said, “It’s not my fault that you were overcome with a fit of gentlemanly politeness.” 

 

“And it’s not my fault your mother has a lazy layabout for a son,” Arthur said haughtily, causing Merlin to flick some of the soap suds at him. Arthur hesitated for only a moment before retaliating in kind, spattering bubbles across Merlin’s cheeks and nose, at which point the evening degenerated into an all-out brawl. Merlin ended up trapped against the bench, gripping the edge of the counter to stay upright as Arthur kissed him to within an inch of his life—cheating, of course, not that Merlin particularly minded. The sink was almost full to overflowing, since neither of them had thought to turn off the tap, and Arthur was entirely drenched, his hands damp on Merlin’s waist beneath the rucked-up fabric of his shirt and his mouth hard and urgent against Merlin’s own.

 

Hunith walked in on them for the second time a short while later, when she came to ask whether they’d finished putting everything away. At least both of them were fully clothed this time, although in Merlin’s case this was more a matter of semantics.

 

“Boys,” Hunith said from the doorway, sounding vastly amused. “The water?”

 

“Sorry, Mrs Emrys,” Arthur said, his cheeks red, but he didn’t let go of Merlin’s hips—and when Merlin leaned back to turn the tap off, body pressing into Arthur’s from the waist down, Arthur didn’t bother trying to push him away.

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

“Thank you for today,” Arthur said later, stopping once he reached the Emryses’ gate. He turned back to look at the house, escaping lamplight from one of the windows highlighting the sloping planes of his cheeks and the fine ends of his blond eyelashes. “I had fun. And I liked meeting your mum. It was—it was nice.”

 

“I told you it would be fine.” Merlin leaned forward to kiss him softly, trying to coax the lost expression from Arthur’s face. “She likes you. She told me so when you went out to the loo.”

 

“I’m very likeable,” Arthur agreed with a shadow of his usual arrogance, snagging his free hand in Merlin’s shirt and pulling him close. He buried his head in Merlin’s shoulder, his mouth warm and ticklish against Merlin’s throat as he spoke. “She promised she wouldn’t say anything to my father if I didn’t want her to.”

 

“And she won’t,” Merlin assured him. “She’s good at keeping secrets, my mum.”

 

“Good.” Arthur held onto him for a moment longer, as though working up the courage to go on. “It feels…good, to have someone else know,” he said at last, his voice so low that Merlin almost couldn’t hear him. “It’s like—it was such a big deal inside my head, you know? But talking to her made it…made it seem almost normal.”

 

“That’s ‘cause it is normal,” Merlin said. When Arthur didn’t answer, he pulled back a little to look into his face. “Are you going to tell your dad?”

 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Arthur sighed and let Merlin go, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t think he’ll be as calm about it as your mum was, somehow. I really thought she was going to freak out when she found us in the greenhouse, but she didn’t even raise her voice.”

 

Merlin felt his stomach sink a little, but he tried not to let it show on his face. “So, what do we do, then? Keep on making out in the greenhouse until we’re forty?”

 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I was thinking just until I graduate and am living on my own,” he said. “Unless you have some objection to making out with me.”

 

“No.” Merlin had never objected to that part. “But—you do know he’s going to find out eventually, right? I mean.” His hands slid down from Arthur’s shoulders to his chest, fingers curled possessively into the wool of his blazer. “It’s not like you’re suddenly going to become un-gay overnight. You can’t keep sneaking around your whole life.” _We_ can’t keep sneaking around, he meant, but hopefully Arthur would consider that part implied.

 

“I’ll figure it out.” Arthur kissed him again, and Merlin knew it was intended as a distraction, a clear sign that Arthur wanted him to stop talking, but he couldn’t help pressing the issue one last time.

 

“Seriously, Arthur. You can’t let him keep telling you what to do all the time. The next thing you know, he’ll have you married off to some eligible heiress like a modern day _Pride and Prejudice_.”

 

“D’you think I’m going to run off and get married to Keira Knightley?” Arthur asked, sounding amused. He leaned down to blow a raspberry against Merlin’s neck. “Are you _jealous_?”

 

“Like she’d have you,” Merlin retorted, ducking away with a laugh. “Nah, I reckon I’m stuck with you now.” He thought about kissing Arthur back at the shop, about red and white chrysanthemums and the look in Arthur’s eyes. “For the rest of my life, probably.”

 

“Yeah,” Arthur agreed, a slow smile blossoming across his face. “Maybe forever.”

 

 

 **⋆** ✿ **⋆**

 

 

When Merlin went back inside, Hunith was waiting up for him, sitting at the table with a mug of hot chocolate in front of her. She took one look at her son’s face and pushed it wordlessly across the table. He took a sip. It was sweet and milky and full of tiny marshmallows, just the way he liked it.

 

“So,” Hunith said, watching him. “That was your Arthur.”

 

“That was Arthur.” Merlin sat down across from her, wrapping his hands around the cup and not meeting her eyes. The ceramic mug was warm after the chill outside, and he tried not to think of Arthur driving home in the dark, to be greeted when he arrived by a probably-empty house. “Although I’m not sure you could call him mine, sometimes.”

 

He was half expecting her to give him a lecture about safe sex or not making out with his boyfriend when she’d asked him to mind the shop for her, but she didn’t. Instead, she sighed, pushed back her chair and came around the table to him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

 

“That boy cares for you a great deal,” she said, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. “I can see it in the way he looks at you. But it can’t be easy, living alone with his father in that big house, especially with Uther being the way he is. Try to be patient with him, _cariad_. You don’t want to break his heart.”

 

“Shouldn’t you be saying that to him about me?” Merlin complained, tilting his head to look up at her. “You’re _my_ mother; I thought you were meant to be on my side.”

Hunith smiled and gave his shoulders a squeeze.

 

“What makes you think I haven’t?” she said, winking, and she laughed when Merlin groaned. “Make sure you put your cup in the sink when you’re done. I’m going upstairs.”

 

“Yes, Mum,” Merlin replied, and she gave him another kiss on the forehead before saying goodnight. Merlin sat in the kitchen for a while after she’d left, sipping his hot chocolate and staring out in the direction of Camelot House. On the windowsill, the chrysanthemums Arthur had given him stood nodding in his mother’s vase, their bright heads turned silver in the light of the moon. Perhaps he’d give Arthur an African violet for his birthday. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to find some way of keeping it alive.


End file.
